1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus, capable of discharging sheets to a sheet processing apparatus including a plurality of paper discharge trays, a control method therefor, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have conventionally been proposed image forming apparatuses capable of connecting sheet processing apparatuses for performing stapling and folding. Most sheet processing apparatuses include a plurality of paper discharge trays for outputting a printed material. Some image forming apparatuses assign a tray for output in accordance with a function such as the copy function or FAX function, or an application purpose. For a tray in the sheet processing apparatus, setting data of a tray for output is saved and managed not in the internal non-volatile memory of the sheet processing apparatus but in the internal non-volatile memory of the image forming apparatus in accordance with the function of the image forming apparatus.
However, the conventional technique has the following problem. For example, a paper discharge destination indicating a paper discharge tray to which sheets are to be preferentially discharged is set in the internal non-volatile memory of the image forming apparatus for each function such as “copy” or “print”. In some cases, after a sheet processing apparatus connected to the image forming apparatus is disconnected from it, a sheet processing apparatus of a different type is newly connected to it. In this case, the newly connected sheet processing apparatus may differ in paper discharge tray count from the immediately previously connected sheet processing apparatus. If the image forming apparatus determines a paper discharge destination in accordance with the previous setting, sheets may be discharged to a paper discharge tray the user does not intend. To prevent this, the conventional technique clears the paper discharge destination setting in the non-volatile memory upon disconnecting a sheet processing apparatus, and sets a paper discharge destination again upon reactivation. Even when the serviceperson temporarily disconnects a sheet processing apparatus for maintenance, the paper discharge destination setting is cleared, so s/he needs to set the paper discharge destination again. After the maintenance, sheets may be discharged to a paper discharge destination different from the previous one owing to a setting error by the serviceperson or the like, and the user can be confused.